Protective device with E.L. light means

ABSTRACT

A protective device made up of a padding material is arranged to include an EL strip and power pack to provide illumination for the device in addition to cushioning of impacts. The device can be worn as a calf, knee, or elbow pad, in which case a textile backpad and partially transparent or cutout relatively rigid front plastic cover are used, or the device can be wrapped around the metal parts of a bicycle or other vehicle, in which case the plastic cover is replaced by a partially transparent or cutout soft cover sheet. The inclusion of an EL light offers an eye-catching warning to motorists of children playing in the dark by the side of the road.

This application is a Division of application Ser. No. 08/421,647 U.S.Pat. No. 5,688,038, filed Apr. 13, 1995.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

This invention relates to a protective device having a textile frontdecoration sheet and padding made of a polyurethane foam, silicon gel,air cone, or the like for protecting the wearer from bodily injury inthe event of a relatively minor fall or impact such as might occurduring sports activities such as football, skating, skateboarding, andcycling, and an illumination arrangement to help the wearer avoid moreserious impacts, particularly with a motor vehicle. The invention is,for example, suitable for protecting children playing in a darkenvironment on or by a roadside.

2. Discussion of Related Art

Protective devices which include padding made up of a soft material suchas polyurethane (PU) foam, silicon gel, air-filled panels, or the likeare known. Such devices are widely used to protect football players,skaters, and cyclists from bodily injury by absorbing the force ofimpacts. A textile-sheet is normally stitched or otherwise attached toand supported by the soft material which constitutes the padding, andstraps or fasteners are added to form, for example, calf, ankle, knee,and elbow protectors. an extra front plastic cover may be included toprotect the soft material from damage due to an impact, and also todistribute an impact more uniformly over the soft material. The frontplastic cover, when applied to a knee pad or elbow pad, also offersprotection from scrapes and scratches.

Protection devices of the above type can also be applied to toys andexercise equipment to protect the user from bodily injury. For example,a child's bicycle might have a protection device applied to thehandlebar, central bike frame, and joint nut or stem between thehandlebar and the main frame. Such protection devices are usuallyapplied without the front plastic cover sheet so that the soft materialis exposed, although a cover sheet would provide some protection for thesoft cushioning material.

Both types of protective pad have in common the soft cushioningmaterial, a fastening band usually made of VELCRO™, and a textile orplastic cover sheet. The protective pad may be used, in addition to thepurposes mentioned above, for protecting persons who have been medicallytreated for bone pathologies or who have skin injuries.

While protective pads of the type described above are useful to protectthe wearer from impacts caused by falls and collisions with otherpersons, however, they are useless in the event of a collision with amotor vehicle. This is an especially serious hazard in the case ofphysical activities occur in a nighttime environment. For example,camping, nighttime skating, and bicycling are all exciting but dangerousnighttime activities. It is usual in these activities to wear ankle,knee, and/or elbow protectors, but only for protection when striking anon-moving object. Such pads cannot provide sufficient protection frombeing struck by a motor vehicle.

One way of reducing the risk of being struck by a motor vehicle isincrease the visibility of the wearer. It is known, for example, toinclude reflectors on vehicles such as bicycles that attain speeds of asmuch as 30 miles per hour. The problem with such reflectors is that theyare poorly visible unless the headlight of a motor vehicle and thereflector is aligned at a sufficiently close distance before thereflector becomes fully visible to the motorist, by which time is oftentoo late to stop. In addition, the user of the vehicle may not bevisible once he or she leaves the vehicle, for example by falling off,and many high speed vehicles, such as skate boards or roller skates, arenot equipped with any sort of reflector.

As an alternative to reflectors, it is known to provide active lightingin the form of incandescent bulbs or light emitting diodes, at least onsome vehicles and on clothing. Such conventional lighting devices havethe disadvantages of requirements of fragility, bulkiness, complicatedwiring systems, difficulties in attachment to a the soft material, aninability to bend with the material, high power consumption, and narrowviewing angle.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In contrast to the above-mentioned types of protective pads which areunlighted, and the above-mentioned vehicle lighting arrangements havingthe above-mentioned disadvantages, the present invention provides animproved protective pad device which also includes a lightingarrangement made of a soft material that bends with the soft material ofthe padding, and has none of the disadvantages of fragility, bulkiness,complicated wiring systems, difficulties in attachment to the softmaterial, high power consumption, and narrow viewing angle possessed byconventional arrangements.

In addition, the present invention provides an improved power packarrangement in which the power pack is enclosed within the soft materialof the padding or within a strap or band so that the wearer is notexposed to the hard surface of the component housing, thereby avoidinginconvenience and potential harm to the wearer.

When the protective device of the invention is in the form of a calf,ankle, knee, or elbow protector, a front plastic cover is included. Thefront plastic cover can be made of a wholly or partly transparentmaterial to allow light to pass through from an electro-luminescent (EL)light strip which has been glued, tape, stitched, or otherwise attachedat an appropriate location within the cover. Advantageously, the ELlight strip can have drawings, figures, characters, and other designs orwords for the purpose of enhancing the attractive of the device or forpromoting safety. The EL strip can be located in front of the softmaterial or in back of the soft material according to the design, whilethe lead wires for the EL strip may be well concealed under the padattachment band. The outside of the Velcro™ fastening band may includean elastic type pocket for holding the power pack housing, including aDC power battery and an electric circuit made up of a switch, a DC-ACconverter for supplying an activation signal of an appropriate frequencyto the opposite poles of a chemical layer in the EL strip,conventionally a phosphor, the poles being isolated to thereby create avoltage potential and a resulting electric field across the phosphor,the phosphor being arranged to emit light when the voltage is varied ata characteristic excitation frequency.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a calf protector constructed inaccordance with the principles of a first preferred embodiment of theinvention.

FIG. 2 is a front view of a knee protector constructed in accordancewith the principles of the first preferred embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 3 is front view of an elbow protector constructed in accordancewith the principles of the first preferred embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 4 is an exploded perspective view of the calf protector of FIG. 1.

FIG. 5 is a perspective view showing further details of the calfprotector of FIGS. 1 and 4.

FIG. 6 is a perspective view of a child's bicycle which includesprotective devices constructed in accordance with the principles of asecond preferred embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 7 is a perspective view of a child's bicycle which includesprotective devices according to variations of the embodiment shown inFIG. 6.

FIG. 8 is an exploded perspective view showing details of the protectivedevices shown in FIG. 6.

FIG. 9 is an exploded perspective view showing details of another of theprotective devices shown in FIG. 6.

FIG. 10 shows still further details of the protective devicesillustrated in FIGS. 6-9.

FIG. 11 is a schematic circuit diagram for the circuit board illustratedin FIGS. 5, 8, and 9.

FIG. 12 is a block diagram of the circuitry shown in FIG. 11.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

FIGS. 1, 4, and 5 are perspective views of a calf protector constructedin accordance with the principles of a first preferred embodiment of theinvention. The calf protector shown in FIGS. 1, 4, and 5 is made up of alayer of soft material or padding 1 enclosed between a backing layer orbackpad 2, preferably made of a textile material, and a relatively rigidfront plastic cover 3. The textile layer has attached thereto a strap 4for attaching the protector to a calf 5. In addition, the calf protectormay be provided with an elastic textile sock 6 having a foot strap 6'for further supporting the calf protector relative to the wearer's calf.The straps 4 and 6' may be in the form of textile bands, and may includeVELCRO™ fasteners, buckles, or other known fastening means.

As is best illustrated in FIG. 4, the soft material padding 1 can be inthe form of a silicon gel member, an "air cone" or air-filled sheet, afoam member, or any other known padding material suitable for use in acalf protector. The padding is stitched, in the illustrated embodiment,to the textile backpad along a stitching line 7, while the front plasticcover sheet is also stitched to the backpad along a stitching line 8,although those skilled in the art will appreciate that means other thanstitching of attaching the padding 1 and the plastic cover 3 to thebackpad 2 can also be used.

As illustrated in detail in FIG. 5, the calf protector of the preferredembodiment of the invention includes an EL strip 10 which is attached tothe backpad 2 by stitching, adhesive, double-sided tape, Velcro™, or anyother suitable fastening means. The EL strip 10 is powered by a battery12 situated in a power pack housing 13 including compartment 14 for thebattery 12 and standard battery terminal connecting devices 15. Thepower circuitry 16 is, in the illustrated embodiment, provided on acircuit board 17 fitted into a compartment 14', the power pack beingplaced in an elastic pocket 18 formed in the fastening band 4, and thewires 19 preferably being enclosed within the band to emerge at thefront of the calf protector and be preconnected to the EL stripattachment member.

While only the details of the calf protector are shown in connectionwith this preferred embodiment of the invention, which is characterizedby the inclusion of a plastic cover on the outside of the device, andthe inclusion of the power pack within the strap which holds theprotector on the wearer's calf, those skilled in the art will appreciatethat the principles of the invention can be used in any protectivedevice designed to protect the wearer of the device, including a kneeprotector 100 as shown in FIG. 2, and an elbow protector 200 as shown inFIG. 3.

As is apparent from the various EL strip designs shown in FIGS. 1-5, theuse of an EL strip on a protective device offers not only increasedvisibility, but also numerous design possibilities. For example, the ELstrip or strips provided on the preferred protective devices can be cutinto different shapes, have different printing or designs includedthereon, and provide different colors. In addition, it will beappreciated by those skilled in the art that the plastic cover of theprotective device could be partially transparent or include cutouts andone or more EL strips could be placed inside the front cover adjacentthe padding.

An alternative to the protective device of the first preferredembodiment of the invention is the protective device shown in FIGS.6-10, involving placement of padded protective devices 300, 400, and 500around various portions of a child's bicycle 20, in order to soften theimpact of the child striking the metal portions of the bicycle 20. Theprotector devices may, for example, be placed around the handlebars 21of the bicycle, in order to protect the rider's head, around thehandlebar stem 22 to protect the rider's legs and knees, and around themainframe 23 of the bicycle in order to protect the riders crotch, legs,feet, and ankles. Those skilled in the art will note that, except forthe protective devices 300-500, the construction of the bicycles shownin FIGS. 6 and 7 is completely conventional and forms no part of thepresent invention.

FIG. 7 shows an arrangement similar to that of FIG. 6, except that thepattern provided by the lighting arrangement, has been changed from"BMX" to "E.L." in order to illustrate the improved design flexibilityoffered by EL strip design of the preferred embodiments.

Although the protective devices of this embodiment of the invention areillustrated as being in the form of padding for a child's bicycle 20,those skilled in the art will appreciate that the principles of thisembodiment, in which the plastic front sheet has been omitted, may beextended to cover any padded protective devices in which the device isstruck by the user during an impact in order to protect the user fromstriking the underlying support. For example, instead of child's bicycle20, the protective devices of the invention could be used on a trailbike or scooter.

The construction of the handlebar or mainframe protective devicesillustrated in FIGS. 6 and 7 is best understood in connection with theexploded perspective view of FIG. 8 and the views of FIG. 10. In thisembodiment, the soft material or padding is in the form of apolyurethane foam cylinder 24 enclosed within a relatively soft frontcover sheet 25 having Velcro™ fasteners 26 attached directly to thepadding for wrapping the padding around the bicycle frame member orhandlebar and securing it thereto, and cutouts 25' through which the ELstrip is to be viewed.

As illustrated, the foam cylinder 24 includes an indentation 27 shapedto accommodate an EL panel 28, and a further indentation 29 shaped toaccommodate a power pack housing 29' which may be identical to the powerpack housing 13 of the preferred embodiment of the invention, the powerpack including a battery compartment 30 for accommodating batteries 31and connecting hardware 32, electric circuitry 33 (to be described indetail below), a switch 34 for switching the EL light on and off, and acircuit board 35 for mounting the circuitry and switch and which fits incompartment 35' of the battery pack housing 29'.

Details of the handlebar stem protector 400 are shown in FIG. 9. Asillustrated, the protector includes a soft material padding member 39and a partially transparent or translucent front cover 40 sheet havingaffixed thereto an EL strip 41 and a pocket 42 for receiving the batterypack housing 43, which is identical to the power pack housing describedabove, including battery compartments 44 for housing batteries 45 andterminal connectors 46, circuitry 47 and a switch 48 mounted on acircuit board 49 fitted into compartment 50.

Turning now details of the circuitry for causing the EL strip to lightup, in the preferred embodiment shown in FIGS. 11 and 12, which can beused with any of the embodiments shown in FIGS. 1-10, power supplied bya DC power supply 303 is converted to AC power and, consequently, the DCpower source 303 is electrically connected to the electro-luminescentlight strip 200 via a circuit 140 including a DC/AC converter 401electrically connected with a transformer 402, transformer 402 beingfurther electrically connected with a function interface 403 and, viaparallel connected switch 301, with the electro-luminescent strip 200.

In operation, the direct current supplied by DC power source 303 is thusconverted into an alternating current of a desired frequency by DC/ACconverter 401 to the transformer 402 for increasing the voltage of thealternating current, and then transmitted from the transformer 402 tothe function interface 403. Function interface 403 provides a number ofpreset or switchable options for turning on the electro-luminescentlight strip 200, e.g., steady, flash, sequential or random, and may takeany desired form from a simple flasher circuit illustrated in FIG. 5 toa microprocessor, depending on the complexity of the special effects tobe exhibited. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the numberof options is greatly increased if a multiple element strip such as theone disclosed in the above-mentioned U.S. patent application Ser. No.08/305,294, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,572,817, is utilized. Also, while theelectro-luminescent light strip can be turned on and off by means of amanual push button switch 301, it may also be desired to include orsubstitute a photosensitive, vibration-sensitive, tilt-sensitive, ormotion-sensitive switch to automatically turn the light on and off uponthe occurrence of external events such as nightfall or various movementsby the wearer.

Having thus described a preferred embodiment of the invention and anumber of different variations and modifications of the preferredembodiment, it is anticipated that still further variations andmodifications will undoubtedly occur to those skilled in the art uponreading the above description, and it is therefore intended that theinvention be interpreted, in accordance with the appended claims, tocover all such variations and modifications which fairly fall within thescope of the invention.

I claim:
 1. A protective device, comprising:a protective elementconsisting of a soft padding material attached to a partiallytransparent front cover sheet; an electro-luminescent lighting elementattached to the protective element and a power pack electricallyconnected to the electro-luminescent lighting element by wires, said ELstrip being situated in an indentation in said soft padding material;and fastening means for joining two edges of the soft padding materialto form a cylinder.
 2. A protective device as claimed in claim 1,wherein said protective device is arranged to be wrapped around abicycle handlebar.
 3. A protective device as claimed in claim 1, whereinsaid protective device is arranged to be wrapped around a mainframe of abicycle.
 4. A protective device as claimed in claim 1, wherein saidprotective device is arranged to be wrapped around a handlebar tube stemof a bicycle.
 5. A protective device as claimed in claim 1, wherein thesaid protective device is arranged to cushion the rider of a movingvehicle during impact of the rider with the vehicle.